This diploma thesis is concerned with long-term changes in precipitation phase in Europe since 1961 to 2004. Precipitation phase is described by the ratio of snow to total precipitation (S/P) between November and April. The first part is engaged in changes in precipitation phase in the Czech Republic. The S/P ratio in the Czech Republic is decreasing (not significantly) by 0,19%/year. In the second part are used temperature and precipitation data from 10 Czech meteorological stations to determine the threshold temperature. This threshold temperature is 1,1řC (daily average temperature) and is used as indicator of precipitation phase. If there is a daily temperature higher than the threshold temperature, daily precipitation sum is signed as rain and vica versa. This threshold temperature is afterwards applied to temperature and precipitation data at 148 European stations and there is also found out relation between S/P ratios and indexes of 4 the most important teleconnections in Europe. It is shown that long-term trend of S/P ratio is negative and significant, however regionally different. There is a southwest - northeast gradient and the biggest decline is recorded in the central Europe and adjacent areas of Scandinavian Peninsula, but the decline of S/P ratio is slowing toward northwest Russia....

Precipitation phase is fundamental to a catchment’s hydrological response to precipitation events in cold regions and is especially variable over time and space in complex topography. Phase is controlled by the microphysics of the falling hydrometeor, but microphysical calculations require detailed atmospheric information that is often unavailable and lacking from hydrological analyses. In hydrology, there have been many methods developed to estimate phase, but most are regionally calibrated and many depend on air temperature (Ta) and use daily time steps. Phase is not only related to Ta, but to other meteorological variables such as humidity. In addition, precipitation events are dynamic, adding uncertainties to the use of daily indices to estimate phase. To better predict precipitation phase with respect to meteorological conditions, the combined mass and energy balance of a falling hydrometeor was calculated and used to develop a model to estimate precipitation phase. Precipitation phase and meteorological data were observed at multiple elevations in a small Canadian Rockies catchment, Marmot Creek Research Basin, at 15-minute intervals over several years to develop and test the model. The mass and energy balance model was compared to other methods over varying time scales, seasons, elevations and topographic exposures. The results indicate that the psychrometric energy balance model performs much better than Ta methods and that this improvement increases as the calculation time interval decreases. The uncertainty that differing phase methods introduce to hydrological process estimation was assessed with the Cold Regions Hydrological Model (CRHM). The rainfall/total precipitation ratio, runoff, discharge and snowpack accumulation were calculated using a single and a double Ta threshold method and the proposed physically based mass and energy balance model. Intercomparison of the hydrological responses of the methods highlighted differences between Ta based and psychrometric approaches. Uncertainty of hydrological processes, as established by simulating a wide range of Ta methods, reached up to 20% for rain ratio, 1.5 mm for mean daily runoff, 0.4 mm for mean daily discharge and 160 mm of peak snow water equivalent. The range of Ta methods showed that snowcover duration, snow free date and peak discharge date could vary by up to 36, 26 and 10 days respectively. The greatest hydrological uncertainty due to precipitation phase methods was found at sub-alpine and sub-arctic headwater basins and the least uncertainty was found at a small prairie basin.

The precipitation falling as rain or snow has different impact on regional water resources and their annual distribution. Shift from solid to liquid form of precipitation following the increase of the surface air temperatures could be important because such change could influence the timing of spring runoff and cause water scarcity in summer. In this study, the spatial and temporal variations of ratio of snowfall to total precipitation (Sf), mean air temperature, day of year of melt-out and winter and spring runoff is analysed. Data were examined for 11 meteorological and 6 hydrological stations in the mountains catchment in Czechia for November-April 1965-2014. Data were analyzed using the Mann-Kendall trend test. Major results show that Sf has been decreasing strongly throughout the whole examined area, with the strongest decrease in the foothill area of the northern mountains of Czechia. Stronger decrease is observed in lower elevations, at the stations with meant air temperature close to melt temperature. Strongest decrease was observed in March and the weakest decrease was observed in December and April, The significant decreases in Sf are associated with large increase in mean winter air temperatures. Due to the increasing mean air temperature in the cold season, the total rainfall is...